Manager - Buying

Landmark Group; United Arab Emirates; On-site; AED 60,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading retail and hospitality company is looking for a candidate to manage category growth and profitability. Responsibilities include driving sales, preparing merchandising plans based on market data, and ensuring quality standards of products. The ideal candidate will have experience in category management and strong analytical skills to optimize financial performance across assigned categories.

Qualifications

• Experience in category management and sales growth.
• Strong analytical skills to drive inventory and financial performance.
• Ability to develop and implement business plans.

Responsibilities

• Drive sales and profitability from assigned category.
• Prepare annual merchandising plans based on data analysis.
• Ensure quality standards for procured merchandise.

Job description

ROLE PROFILE / RESPONSIBILITIES

1. 1. Category Growth and Profitability

   • Drive sales from the assigned category by developing comprehensive category business plans.
   • Drive and monitor gross margins for the category and ensure alignment with the organization’s position, business plan and budgets.

2. 2. Category Merchandise Planning

   • Prepare annual plans for the assigned category and provide inputs to the Merchandising Development and Buying Head to assist in creation of overall merchandizing budget.
   • Study trends from historical data around product category sales and market research to assist in the overall planning process.
   • Ensure adherence to financial plan in all key areas – sales, markdowns, margin & average inventory.
   • Discuss, decide and freeze the merchandise plans (pricing, promotion, assortment etc.) for the category with the Merchandise Planning department.
   • Ensure effective in season management across territories (stock balancing, markdown management, stock analysis, stock vs sales performance).

3. 3. Category Design and Quality

   • Ensure optimum utilization of customer research information to guide category management decisions, including decisions on the introduction of new products, product assortment, shelf layout, promotion, and pricing of products in the store.
   • Formulate design and development plan in consultation with the Design Head with specifications on product features, functions, packaging and resource requirement across categories.
   • Ensure all design and development activities are carried out within budget.
   • Ensure the merchandise procured and received meets the quality standards.